


If Love Wants You: Memory Will Roam Your Skin

by blessedharlot



Series: If Love Wants You [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (one scene of deer hunting and vague description of processing the carcass), Animal Death, Barbershop Quartet, Brief Mentions of Remembered Gore, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes Redemption Arc, Canon Compliant, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Food, Found Family, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Post-Civil War (Marvel), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, body horror (brief mention of dismemberment), killing an animal for food
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-24
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-11-04 04:00:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10982934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blessedharlot/pseuds/blessedharlot
Summary: “A seed catalog,” Bucky said grumpily, as he shook his head and adjusted his gloves again. “You’re kidding me with this right? I mean, okay. You found a nice house. It’s too quiet here, but okay. It’s a nice house. But picking out seeds? To grow? Like we know anything about that?”“You grew sunflowers,” Steve offered as he picked his ax back up. “And potatoes.”Bucky’s eyes widened with incredulity. “For science projects! In jars at school. That’s not farming. Steve. Do you have any concept of what you’re trying to do here?”“Yeah. I’m trying to put up with a very grumpy and opinionated bum who’s not helping with much work yet.”Bucky scoffed, and shifted out of his slouch to reach for his own ax.Steve felt he could walk on air. Bucky was beside him, swinging an ax and complaining about it.This was all he wanted.-=-=-=-=-Steve brings Bucky home, to start his recovery and adjustment process. It's... complicated. And involves a lot of shoveling.





	1. Every Vow and Broken Vow

**Author's Note:**

> The series "If Love Wants You" begins shortly after the events of Captain America: Civil War. Previously in the series, Nat told Steve about her past with Bucky, and Bucky's reaction to his old trigger sequence has been erased through a Wakandan treatment plan. Bucky and Nat stumbled into their first new sexual encounter with each other just before the gang celebrated Bucky's birthday. 
> 
> And that brings you up to date!
> 
> Every title in this series comes from Anne Michael's wonderful poem, "Last Night's Moon."

There were worse places to be stuck overnight than Paris.

Steve had to admit, one element of all their recent traveling had gone quite smoothly. They’d gone back and forth to Wakanda repeatedly, and there hadn’t been many airline hiccups. So, he supposed he shouldn’t be too upset that the four of them had just spent a free night in Paris on their first significant delay. In some rather roomy digs, at that. As eager as he was to get Bucky home, this wasn’t a hardship. 

Taking Bucky home. The thought nearly brought tears to Steve’s eyes, even if it was a home Bucky hadn’t been to before. He couldn’t wait to show it to him.

Despite their assumed identities, and Nat’s coaching on covert travel, Steve’s espionage techniques still must have left something to be desired. The airline agent had clearly recognized him. She hadn’t made any fuss or triggered any consequences that they’d noticed yet, which he very much appreciated. But he assumed that her recognition was why each one of them - Bucky, Sam, Nat and himself - had their own lovely two-room suite for the night. 

Now morning had arrived, and Steve had his luggage packed and his in-flight books neatly stacked near the knickknacks on the coffee table. They didn’t need to be at the airport for another three hours. There was plenty of time to find breakfast.

As Steve entered the hotel hallway and closed his suite door, Sam was leaving his own room two doors down. 

“Did you see that cafe on the corner on the way in?” Sam began. “I bet they have amazing crepes.”

“Good plan. I’m certain we could talk Bucky into food. I’ll see if he’s awake.” 

Steve strode purposefully toward Bucky’s suite, passing Nat’s on the way. 

“Have you seen Nat yet?” Steve whispered over his shoulder.

Sam shook his head and stood waiting. 

Steve’s first hint that something was off was that Bucky’s door was not only unlocked… it wasn’t entirely closed. 

Steve stopped in his tracks, and looked back at Sam, quietly telegraphing concern that he hoped was unnecessary. Sam took the cue and looked more alert, while Steve cautiously opened the door. 

Steve was instantly alarmed. The front room of the little suite had been wrecked.

The coffee table had been swept clear of its previous contents. Someone had knocked over two lamps and a table clock. Couch cushions were in upheaval. A chair was on its side. A window curtain was partially torn from its hooks. And while the bedroom door was now closed, the moulding above it had been pulled loose on one side.

All of Steve’s alarm bells went off. They’d known Bucky would be sought after by multiple parties. Bucky had even been tempted to reject his new bionic arm, in case it put an even larger target on him, and on them. Steve didn’t think they would attract trouble this quickly, even with Bucky’s fancy new arm in place.

But it looked like an interested party had already tracked him down.

_ Damnit, _ Steve thought bitterly.

His heart was in his throat, and his mind raced with questions. When did this happen? Why hadn’t they heard a struggle? 

Where was Bucky?

Steve looked urgently back at Sam in the hallway, and as Steve headed further inside, toward the bedroom door, he heard Sam carefully entering the hotel suite behind him. 

Steve listened at the bedroom door, but heard nothing. He steeled himself for anything he might find in there, and opened it quickly and quietly.

A quick glance around the bedroom showed it in a similar state of disarray, with several items strewn around the floor. But Steve’s eyes focused on Bucky… unmoving, splayed helplessly across the bed. 

He was on his back, arms flung wide and mouth agape. His eyes were closed, and he had no clothes on at all.

Steve scanned the room again, but there were no intruders currently visible. He approached quietly, deeply worried, looking for a rise or fall in his friend’s chest.  _ Why would they leave him here? _ Steve thought.  _ I don’t understand _ . A quick visual sweep of his body showed Steve there were a few red marks on Bucky, but no visible signs of life-threatening injuries. He heard Sam’s quiet step behind as his mind reeled, taking in Bucky’s limp form. He wasn’t even covered up by the crumpled pile of bedsheets nearby.

As Steve took another step forward, he couldn’t help but hold his breath and plead.

“Bucky?”

At his name, Bucky’s eyes flitted open, and he sniffed. He looked surprised as his eyes came into focus on Steve.

“Buck, are you okay?”

He looked deeply confused. After a beat he quietly croaked a reply. 

“... yeah.” 

Steve spread his hands, looked around the room and asked, “What happened?”

Bucky looked around curiously, as if to discover what Steve was talking about.

Then Bucky’s eyes got wide, and he laughed. 

Steve stood there stunned as Bucky’s laughter continued. Bucky grabbed his side and wrinkled his nose. Steve looked back at Sam - standing alert in the bedroom doorway - to see if he understood what was going on. 

Sam looked as puzzled as Steve felt, at first. Then Steve watched as comprehension bloomed in his friend’s eyes.

So Steve turned back around.

The crumpled bedsheets near Bucky were shaping themselves into red hair, bare skin, and a modestly placed arm.

“Oh,” Nat said. “Morning, boys.”

Bucky reached for her and tried to stifle giggles. 

Steve immediately closed his eyes and started backing out of the room, smiling in embarrassment for everyone.

“Oh… kay, then,” Steve said. “We’ll head to breakfast.”

“Wait, breakfast?” Bucky said. “Don’t go without me.”

“Buck.”

“No, we’ll be right there,” he said, fumbling off the bed.

Steve closed the bedroom door and sighed. Then he looked around the front room in wonder, shaking his head.

“Maybe… maybe it looks worse than it is,” he reasoned to Sam. Now that Steve looked more closely, he saw that something on the floor was made of lace, and torn. “Maybe not much is actually… broken.” Steve reached for a desk clock on the floor. “Maybe if we put the… the lamps and chair back where they go-”

“Steve, I am not touching any item in this room,” Sam said, standing with his hands in his pockets.

“How did they do this much damage?” Steve mused with bewilderment.

“Neither will I make an effort to imagine anything that led to this.”

Steve righted the overturned chair with pursed lips.

Bucky soon joined them, wearing jeans and carrying a long-sleeved t-shirt with him. Steve watched as Bucky casually stepped around obstacles on the cluttered floor and scanned the room for a functioning place to sit. Not able to locate anything better, Bucky just hitched himself up on a couch arm and finished pulling his shirt over his head. 

When his shirt was in place, he turned to Steve. “Where we gonna eat?”

Steve stared at him, hoping for an answer to one of several questions he had.

Bucky saw Steve’s expectant expression, and said, “Oh, she’s almost dressed.”

“Buck!” Steve exclaimed.

“What?”

Steve took a second to wonder where to start. He decided on, “Did you have to trash the hotel room?”

“I...” Bucky giggled. “That was an accident. We’ll clean it up.”

Steve raised an eyebrow and pointed at the door jamb pulled partially away from the wall.

Bucky turned and looked at the doorway, right as Nat stepped into it. She looked fully dressed and uncomfortable. 

“Oh,” Bucky said as he drew her attention to the damage. “Oh wow. That’s… sweetheart?”

“Yeah, that was me, I’ll take credit for that,” Nat admitted.

Bucky still looked puzzled. “When did that even- oh wait, was that-”

It doesn’t matter,” Nat gently emphasized. “And now that we’ve all stumbled into information that wasn’t freely given, why don’t we all act like adults and move on from this topic?”

“Great plan,” Sam said. “Let’s go eat.”

Sam and Nat headed out first, Nat leveling a stern look at Bucky that earned her a tiny grin in return. Bucky began rooting around the room to find the jacket that he kept his hat and gloves in. Steve hung back and waited on him while the others left.

“Are you okay?” Steve asked, once they’d gone.

“Yeah,” Bucky said, like it was obvious.

Steve searched for words again, but his elation and embarrassment and worry all fought each other and he only managed to give his friend a questioning look.

Bucky shrugged. “She keeps calling it ‘closure’.”

“Keeps calling it?” Steve said incredulously. "This has happened before?”

“Yeah.”

“Closure. What does that even mean?”

Bucky shrugged again. “I don’t know. But I’m willing to work with it.”

The grin had lingered on Bucky’s face as he talked… slowly gaining a rare smugness to it. And for a second Steve was transported back to his old Bucky, smiling ear to ear with a swaggering joy at some recent exchange he’d had with a pretty girl.

Maybe some things don’t change.

  
-=-=-=-=-=-

  
They arrived back at the house on a beautiful, sunny day.

The work on the house and on the land was just about exactly where Steve wanted it to be by the time Bucky came home. With so much to do, he had prioritized getting the sleeping quarters ready for Bucky, Sam and himself. Despite making some quick strides in his own carpentry skills, Steve hadn’t been ready to try such a project himself, and had hired contractors to handle that work. Now, with the construction on the house complete, they all had more personal space than they knew what to do with, with a couple guest bedrooms to spare. 

Steve loved having guest bedrooms; it was probably his favorite thing about the house. Nat had already left a few things in one of them during regular visits. Steve had no reason to believe she’d spend any less time here now that Bucky was home… though, after what Steve saw in Paris, he wasn’t sure what her sleeping arrangements might be. Sharon had visited once so far, and they certainly enjoyed each other’s company immensely. But she had also indulged his lingering old-fashioned ways, and she had ended up in a guest room before the night was done. 

(Sharon hadn’t explained to Steve where she still went on missions, nor who was sending her these days. Nat hadn’t either. But Steve had reason to casually wonder sometimes what Nick Fury was up to, wherever he was.)

There was plenty more work to do on the land itself. But the rooms were ready, and Bucky was here now. And neither of them had anything but time, and muscle. Steve had a plan. He had a list. He had projects. And he and Bucky would do the work together. It would be good for them both. 

There was land to clear. There were drainage issues to fix. Soil to till and improve. New beds to build for landscaping. Storage to create. Maintenance to complete on the trees. Seeds to plant and care for. Maybe even some walking paths to create through the woods.

Bucky would get exercise and fresh air. He’d have something to do with his time that wasn’t dwelling on the past or doing harm... or even rushing into danger, for that matter. Steve wouldn’t let him make some of the same mistakes he had, rushing back into never-ending war. They would stay here, and Bucky would be safe, and comfortable. He’d be doing something constructive. He could grow things that could nourish them all. He could heal his head and his heart. Bucky could do the thinking that Nat said he probably needed to do, on how to make right what he feels he did wrong.

He and Bucky would get reacquainted again. They’d fill in gaps… not just in memory, but in what they knew and understood about each other. Steve was certainly aware of how much he’d changed coming out of the ice. Time changes everybody… some more than others. There would be things he didn’t yet understand about Bucky and what he needed, but he’d figure it out. They’d figure it out together.

Steve felt invigorated by the promise the situation had. So much so that, before they’d been there a full day, Steve had Bucky in the backyard, taking down tree trunks to expand the planting space by another acre or two.

As Steve hauled a smaller felled tree out of their way, Bucky found yet another reason to take a breather.

“A seed catalog,” Bucky said grumpily, as he shook his head and adjusted his gloves again. “You’re kidding me with this right? I mean, okay. You found a nice house. It’s too quiet here, but okay. It’s a nice house. But picking out seeds? To grow? Like we know anything about that?”

“You grew sunflowers,” Steve offered as he picked his ax back up. “And potatoes.”

Bucky’s eyes widened with incredulity. “For science projects! In jars at school. That’s not farming. Steve. Do you have any concept of what you’re trying to do here?”

“Yeah. I’m trying to put up with a very grumpy and opinionated bum who’s not helping with much work yet.”

Bucky scoffed, and shifted out of his slouch to reach for his own ax.

Steve felt he could walk on air. Bucky was beside him, swinging an ax and complaining about it.

This was all he wanted.

 

-=-=-=-=-=-

 

“Okay the first rule of this house is, the kitchen belongs to me,” Sam said. 

Bucky was there because he hadn’t received the orientation yet. He stood square shouldered with his arms crossed, only a bit grumpy at the moment. Steve and Nat were there for a refresher course. She sat on the end of the counter, with only a slightly exaggerated attentive expression, while Steve leaned against a cabinet. 

“You are - all of you - only ever borrowing this room,” Sam continued. “So clean up after yourselves. And only use pots and pans you’ve been given explicit permission to use.”

“He’s being very serious,” Nat stage whispered to Bucky. “I wouldn’t suggest testing him on the cookware issue.”

Bucky raised an eyebrow. Steve chuckled at the memory of Nat’s test.

“And you, young lady.” Sam pointed and paused for effect, and then just waved a hand in exasperation. “Just put foil down on all the cookie sheets when you use them. Every time. To protect them from whatever it is you do. You’re hopeless.”

“What the hell is that?” Bucky pointed toward a counter. 

“That’s a spice rack,” Steve said.

“What’s wrong with it?” Bucky asked. Steve immediately looked affronted.

"There’s nothing _wrong_ with it,” Sam offered diplomatically. ‘It’s just creative. It’s a Steve Rogers original.”

“That’s the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen,” said Bucky.

“It’s roomy,” Sam insisted. “It gives me enough room to reach all my good stuff at once, without shoving it awkwardly in a cabinet.”

Bucky eyed Steve suspiciously. Steve tried not to look thrilled to take the ribbing from him.

 

-=-=-=-=-=-

 

Steve was glad he had selected the plastic porch chairs that leaned back so far. Tonight they’d hauled them out into the backyard to watch the sky.

“I didn’t know there were this many stars,” Bucky marveled.

“It’s being out here in the boondocks,” Sam replied. “What we lack in decent Chinese food, we also lack in light pollution.” 

“Are there any more beers?” Nat said.

“Yeah, there is.” Bucky leaned down and rummaged through the big bowl of ice to find Nat another drink. “What does ‘artisanal’ mean?” he asked as he handed her one.

“It means you paid too much for this beer,” Sam replied.

“I need another story about Brooklyn,” Nat said.

Bucky smiled at Steve. “Who wants to hear about Steve’s first gym class?”

Nat and Sam both answered quickly in the affirmative.

Steve interjected, “No way, all the stories have been about me so far. We need Bucky stories.”

“I’ll take Bucky stories, too,” Sam said.

“I don’t remember as many of those,” Bucky said with a grin.

His comment was met with a collection of suspicious sounds that made Steve’s heart feel full.

Steve clapped his hands once and rubbed them together. “Alright, Buck. You’re either telling them about... your snow-shoveling business that lasted exactly three days... or the time you convinced two of your sisters that aliens had landed. Pick one.”

“Aliens,” Nat and Sam said in unison.

“Excuse me, he told me to pick, thank you very much,” Bucky retorted.

“Oh wait, hang on!” Nat exclaimed.

“You’re leaving now? When we’ve got him cornered and ready to provide information?” Sam said.

Nat had already disappeared inside. 

“You were supposed to be the bad cop!” Sam yelled after her.

Before Bucky could say whatever he’d opened his mouth to say next, she was back outside holding a small paper bag.

“You missed the alien story,” Bucky said.

“That’s a lie, he told us nothing,” Sam said.

“Of course not,” Nat said. “He’s gonna hold out on us.” 

She pulled her chair next to Bucky’s and smiled, with one hand in the paper bag. Steve wondered for a split second if they needed privacy for whatever she had in mind.

“Open your mouth and close your eyes,” she commanded of Bucky.

Bucky’s eyes widened in mock alarm. After a moment of his hesitating, Nat replied. “Come on. I’m not gonna poison you in front of Steve.”

Bucky shot Steve a deadpan look, while Nat got impatient.

“Do it!” she ordered.

Bucky immediately opened his mouth and twisted up his face, as he very slowly squinted one eye shut at a time.

When his eyes were finally closed, Nat broke off some small morsel of what was in the bag and placed it gingerly in his mouth.

Bucky’s flinched a bit as something hit his tongue. As she moved her hand away, he wrapped his mouth around the bite of food and chewed.

After a second, his face split wide in a smile.

“Oh my God,” he said quietly, then he said something to her in Russian. 

She replied, also in Russian. Bucky dipped his hand into the bag for more, and though Steve didn’t understand the language, he still made an effort not to eavesdrop. 

After a moment, they seemed to remember Sam and Steve were there. 

Nat returned to the topic of old stories. “Now did you help with the chickens too, James?”

“The chickens?” Bucky asked. “Oh wait, yeah. There were chickens.” He leaned back again and casually pointed at Steve. “Not as much as Steve did. My neighbor errands were usually about lifting heavy things.”

“That’s right,” Steve suddenly recalled. “For old man Collins. And Mrs. Debicki.”

“Yeaaaaah, Mrs. Debicki,” Bucky drawled. Steve wondered for a second if Bucky was more capable of being inebriated than Steve realized.

Bucky turned to Nat excitedly. “She was… she taught me the…” He paused. “The thing I do. That you like.”

Nat blinked expectantly. “The… spinning dropkick?”

“No! The…” Bucky paused again, and looked a bit flush. He mumbled, “One of your... favorite things I do in bed.”

“BUCKY!” Steve exclaimed.

Bucky sighed and rubbed one eye.

“Mrs. Debicki??”

Bucky giggled.

“She was a war widow!” Steve protested.

Bucky's voice was thick with mirth. “And very patient and educational,” he said. 

Sam burst out laughing while Nat smiled wide.

“Well I owe her quite a debt, it seems,” she said.

“Mrs. Debicki,” Sam said luridly.

“Wow,” Steve said, shaking his head. He still had more to learn about their childhood, it seemed.

They all kept stargazing and talking, late into the night. It was magical, and ordinary, and beautiful. 

 

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

 

Everybody else hassled him about it, but Steve really liked his visits to the library. It reminded him of the excitement he’d feel going there as a kid. And it was still the handiest place for him to go for internet access. He had no need for a desktop computer at the house; he didn’t spend that much time on it. And he liked the break of not being plugged into the noise outside their little oasis. He hardly turned the TV on, either. Sam had insisted on wi-fi in the house, so Steve was able to look up quick references on his phone. But for longer reading, the library was the place to be.

His favorite library so far was in the larger of the two towns nearby, about 45 minutes away. This branch was a friendly little brick one-story building near a creek, and had a small stained glass window high in one corner. It also had several nooks with comfy chairs for reading, and Steve was pretty sure his cover story was intact with most of the staff there. There was only one angular young library assistant with dark skin and long braids who, he suspected, recognized him. Her eyes got very wide the first time she lingered on his face, and that had made him worry. But no one had said anything, or bothered him at all since then. The assistant enthusiastically winked at him every time he came in, and otherwise left him alone.

This visit, he brought Bucky, who only balked a few minutes before deciding he wanted to come. 

Steve sat in his favorite corner perusing a few books he was considering for checkout. He could see Buck’s face from where he sat, partially obscured by the monitor Bucky was in front of. He was very intently concentrating on whatever he was reading on the screen. 

Steve fought back the urge to see what it was and check in with him about it, maybe recommend some books on the topic. He gave Bucky his privacy, and kept reading.

 

-=-=-=-=-=-

 

Steve returned from a run out back one morning to find Sam and Bucky on the back porch. 

As he came close, the mood felt heavy. He was glad he hadn’t yelled out something flip as he had approached. 

Bucky stood leaning against the back wall of the house, his arms wrapped very tightly around him. He was gasping for air. His head was turned away from them, as he stared unfocused toward the trees.

Sam stood across from him, leaning on a railing, watching him. Sam’s posture was relaxed but alert. His breathing was slow and deep.

Steve took the porch steps quickly, opening his mouth to check on Bucky. 

Before he got the words out, Sam held up a hand and nodded a request for silence. Then he wordlessly put his hand back in his pocket.

Steve stood helpless for a minute, worried about Bucky. But it looked like Sam was more comfortable without him interfering. And maybe… maybe sometimes… Steve thought he might be hovering a bit too much over Bucky. 

He watched them both in turn. Bucky didn’t look at either one of them, but his breath was very, very slowly getting less ragged. Sam nodded reassuringly at Steve again.

Steve took Sam’s cues, and slowly went inside. And tried not to worry.

 

-=-=-=-=-=-

  
It was 3 a.m. and Steve sat at the kitchen table. It was understandable that he’d have a sleepless night here and there, with all the excitement and upheaval - and worry, if he were completely honest with himself.  

As he worked on a plate of leftover enchiladas, the back door opened and Sam came home from a late shift.

“Hey, man,” Sam said wearily.

“You look wiped,” Steve said.

“Another day, another O.D. There still any pork left?”

“We left you some.”

“Fantastic.”

A tired Sam fumbled quietly around the kitchen for a few minutes, and Steve finished off his food. Then Sam sat down with a plate, taking a moment first to close his eyes and take a deep breath before digging in. Just then, Nat appeared at the bottom of the stairs and headed for the back door.

“Hey,” she said.

Hey,” Sam replied.

She stopped at the back door, spun around and smiled.

“Bye,” she said.

“Bye,” Steve replied curiously. He looked at Sam as she left, and they both shrugged at each other.

“So, this job’s working out for you?” Steve asked Sam.

“Yeah,” Sam answered as he dug into carnitas. “Yeah, it is. The guys I work with are alright.”

“Is it exciting?”

“Not really, thank God,” he chuckled. “It’s deeply satisfying to me that the most exciting part of my day now is helping one single person, in the back of an ambulance, that so far has a 100% success rate of getting to the hospital without being attacking by Hydra. Or aliens. Or alien Hydra.” 

Steve chuckled.

“Making myself useful again feels good,” Sam said. “Had my fill of sitting around.”

Images of Sam in his prison cell flitted through Steve’s head.

Sam shot a sheepish look at Steve and held up a hand. “No offense.”

“None taken,” Steve said. “Your work suits you.”

They sat in silence while Sam ate. Steve still enjoyed how quiet the house could be. It felt to him like the last few years had just been too loud, too often.

 

-=-=-=-=-=-

  
Bucky was still deferring to the others on media choices, for the most part. 

Nat and Sam had been focusing on movies from the last twenty years. For tonight’s viewing, Steve had carefully chosen an older one: “Forbidden Planet.” It had space travel, suspense, robots. Just a few years removed from what he and Bucky used to watch as kids. 

“Seriously, what’s ‘artisanal’ supposed to mean?" Bucky asked as he read a package in his hands. "I don’t get it.” 

“It means you spent too much money on the popcorn,” Nat said, as she sipped her bottle of cream soda.

“Where’s the remote?” Steve asked.

“Probably in this dirty mess Barnes left on the floor,” Sam offered as he looked.

Bucky shot him a look. “I suppose you’re the one who put dirty dishes on my bed then?”

“They were YOUR dirty dishes.”

“Sam!” Steve said.

“Steve,” Sam said sternly. 

“I’m with Sam on this one,” Nat said. “James can clean up after himself a bit more. In fact, Sam only put the dishes there the first time. I stole his idea after that.”

Steve gave Nat a look too.

“What? Sam’s gotten me used to a clean kitchen. It’s really nice!”

“What difference does it make to you if it’s clean?” Bucky demanded of her. “You only use the microwave and the forks.”

Sam went into his therapeutic voice that Steve could recognize by now, though it did have an edge to it. “Now listen up. This is a whole household full of surly, worn out soldiers, every last one of us, in our own ways. We all have bad days. We all know what they look like. But nobody needs to carry anybody else.”

He found a remote, and turned to Bucky.

“You’re a grown man with two arms, you can do your own dishes and keep them out of everybody else’s way. And you can stop leaving messes like this in the common areas.”

Steve watched Bucky roll his eyes, but neither Steve nor Bucky protested any further.

Sam turned the TV on, and everyone’s head spun around when they heard Tony’s voice. 

“... stronger than we’ve ever been,” Tony said. “More focused, more efficient.”

Tony was slowly cutting his way through a mob of reporters in a parking lot, and he was looking like he’d had a few sleepless nights lately himself. Unrelated headlines scrolled across the bottom of the screen. 

“That’s why the Accords were built, that’s why we’re here with these committees,” Tony continued, “to be responsive and accountable to you. We have an amazing team we’re building.”

One reporter made herself heard over the other people yelling. 

“Mr. Stark, why do you think some Avengers are still rejecting the Accords as the law of the land?”

“There are no Avengers who have not signed off on the Accords,” Tony replied. “That’s what the title Avenger means now. Your heroes. Your fighters, protecting the world under the auspices and wisdom of collective world governments.”

Bucky spoke first. “Are people upset? I thought this was just what everybody wanted.”

Nat replied. “They wanted their personal *favorite* Avengers wearing badges and smiling for the cameras.”

A reporter echoed Nat’s thoughts. “Mr. Stark, what is your response to public concerns that the Avengers are fractured or incomplete without Captain Rogers involved?”

“Captain Rogers has fought for this country since before I was born,” Tony replied as he reached his car. He was not entirely keeping his cool. “He’s earned the retirement that he freely chose and is now enjoying, don’t you-”

Sam switched the channel.

“Alright,” he said. “That’s enough work drama. Let’s start the movie.”

 

-=-=-=-=-=-

 

Steve lay awake, staring at the ceiling.

His nightmares about Bucky had evolved a lot since Steve came out of the ice. Recently, they were usually about fears of the future - mostly the terrible possibility of Bucky being captured again. Before that, when Steve still searched for him, his dreams often revolved around the treatment Steve read about in the file Nat got him. 

It had been years since Steve had specifically dreamed about that day on the train. Their two combatants. The hole being blown in the side of the car. Bucky flying out, the rail coming loose before Steve could get to him. 

Steve’s repeated revisiting of that particular memory since moving into the new house had come as a surprise.

More than one person had told Steve that he didn’t have any reasonable way of knowing Bucky could survive that fall. But Steve’s analytical side had worked out what his intuition had told him all along. Steve himself could have survived it. And Germany was as desperate for super soldiers as the US was. And Steve knew Bucky had spent time in the hands of some ruthless Nazi scientists.

It should have occurred to him. He should have looked. He should have gone after Bucky.

Bucky really hadn’t even wanted to be there. Steve knew that. Bucky had never said as much but, after his first capture… he stayed in Europe to have Steve’s back. Just like he always had.

Steve tried to tell himself the same thing he told Nat. They had him back now. That was what mattered.

Steve had relied on Bucky so much growing up. He’d relied on Bucky again, during the war. Steve hadn’t had any siblings, but he couldn't imagine being any closer to Buck had they been blood brothers. They were there for each other when no one else was... through bullies,  through heartbreak, through everything. Good times and bad. They were family. 

Steve had let Bucky down. That much was clear.

But Steve wouldn’t let that happen again.   
  


-=-=-=-=-=-

 

They had already dug a long trench down one side of the property, to help with water drainage. Now, with the help of a rented pickup truck that had a lined bed, they were making what Steve had learned was called a French drain… filling the trench with gravel, to protect the route of the exiting water.

Steve kept most of their work plans simple. They were still learning just what it was that they were doing. In this case, there was no reason they needed anything more than two large shovels and a few trips with the truck to get the job done. 

Bucky had not signed off on Steve’s hands-on, rustic working philosophy yet.

“Why are we doing all this ourselves?” Bucky asked.

“Who else is gonna do it?”

“You telling me most people do this job with hand tools?”

“Maybe not. But they don't have bored super soldiers laying around. Besides. Whaddaya think, I’m made of money?”

“Where’d you get the money for all this, anyway?” Bucky stopped and leaned on his shovel.

“I put a little away here and there. And then... well. I tried to submit the bid on the house anonymously,” Steve frowned. “But apparently the anonymous part didn't take. So then they dropped their asking price by a third.”

“A third?”

“Yeah. One of their dads walked out of Azzano with us.”

“Ah,” Bucky nodded.

“And then I had the cash to renovate right away.”

Bucky laughed as he started shoveling again. “How many times did they have to put up with _that_ story from the old man, I wonder. ‘I could see him, kids! It wasn’t hard. He looked like a red and blue peacock, strutting into a POW camp bright and patriotic as you please. It was the most ridiculous sight I’d ever seen.’”

“Ridiculous?” Steve said as he loaded up the shovel and emptied it again. “You’re being kind now. You used to call it stupid.”

“I think i called it suicidal.”

“Ah, yeah, that was it!”

“You’re getting old and feeble-headed.”

“Mhm,” Steve shook his head at him. “Hey, how are things going with Natasha?”

Bucky shrugged. “They're fine,” he said defensively. “They're going. Why?”

“Just wondering. I care about you both. Things happened... pretty fast. Is all.”

“You don't think we should be doing this.”

“I didn't say that,” Steve replied emphatically. “In fact, that’s the opposite of what I want. You two making this work would make me very, very happy. I’m just saying it went fast. And it’s complicated.”

Bucky stopped and leaned again.

“Isnt it?” Steve offered.

Bucky nodded. “She’s not happy.”

Steve stopped this time. When Bucky didn’t go on, Steve chanced a question. 

“Did she say why?”

“She didn’t say anything. I can just tell.” Bucky stared at the trench. “What if she's gotten herself into something she doesn’t really want?” he said quietly.

“Nat’s a smart cookie. She knows where the door is. If she wanted to take it, she would.”

“Maybe,” Bucky said. He worried the end of the shovel in his palm, then he looked at Steve.

“This isn’t some giant metaphor of yours is it? All this digging?”

“What do you mean?”

“Trying to dig up some... fragments. Of a guy who doesn’t exist anymore. I’m not gonna do that.”

“Nobody here wants you to go backwards.”

Bucky snorted. Then he started shoveling again.

Steve didn’t resume work yet. “Talk to me, Bucky,” he said.

He threw the gravel he carried into the ditch and just held the shovel in his hand. “Look. It’s not the work, okay. It’s just… the whole damn thing. What are we gonna do next with all this? Plant things? And then what? Steve. What are we doing?”

“Bucky,” Steve said. He stuck his shovel into the ditch’s accumulated gravel and came to rest his hands on Bucky’s shoulders. “I need you to trust me. Just a little bit, for a little while, okay? Don’t worry about what comes next. What comes next is this, right here. I’ve got a good feeling about it, down in my bones. I don’t know how long we’ll be here, and I don’t know what comes after. I just know this is the step we’re supposed to take right now. I think that…”

Bucky had been looking down at the ditch. But he finally lifted his eyes to Steve. There was anger in his gaze. And something else too. A longing. Steve didn’t know what it might be for, and he suspected Bucky didn’t know either. He wondered if this was about the work Nat spoke of. He wondered how to help Bucky.

Steve continued. “I think we’ll both be better off for throwing ourselves into this. Okay? Trust me.”

Bucky eventually nodded. Then they went back to work.


	2. Old Maps, Disproved Theories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there dear readers, here's a look inside Bucky's farm-living head. Just double-check the tags above and make sure you’re cool with them. I’ve done a thing that’s unusual for me in this chapter.

It had been a month since he left Wakanda, and Bucky didn’t know what to do with himself.

He was here with Steve. Which made as much sense as anything else. Living together again felt surreal on one day and entirely ordinary the next. Sometimes it was even a weird sensation to see Steve out of Wakanda. It was as though he’d become a seamless part of the medical care team assigned to him there.  _ Here’s your doctor, Mr. Barnes, and your bed. Here’s your nurse for today. And here’s your assigned childhood friend to fuss over you. _

Nat came to visit a lot. Her visits were strange - an odd combination of familiar routine and tension. He was certain there was some decision she was still on the fence about. They had something like friendship. Or maybe she was his girlfriend. He wasn’t sure. They had sex, and they slept together too. He liked both activities a lot. Sometimes he actually slept when she was here, more so than when he was alone. 

Maybe he’d sleep more someday. But he kinda doubted it.

Bucky didn’t want anything in particular about the situation to change. He didn’t know what he wanted. He didn’t know why he was this restless.

He wondered if he should try to do what Sam had done, and get a job. Sam’s assumed identity was at least working well enough for folks in the nearby town to let him run an ambulance. Sam seemed happy with it. And he was helping people, being useful. Bucky didn’t know if he’d be more or less recognizable than Sam… but he was pretty sure he had fewer employable skills than Sam did. Of the legitimate, non-lethal variety, anyway.

Bucky knew he was making Steve happy, doing his chores and projects. They’d cleared land. They’d built a big shed. They’d built a drainage ditch down one side of the property. There were plans to build some paths through the woods, eventually. At some point they’d do whatever it was that soil needed to help it grow things. 

And Steve was getting insistent that Bucky pick some vegetables out to plant. 

_ As though we’re capable of making food just appear out of thin air, _ Bucky thought.  _ That’s not a superpower of anybody here. _

Day in and day out, they’d all pass by the kitchen counter where that giant catalog of seeds sat. Steve just kept pointing it out to Bucky. It was huge -- the size of the old Sears Roebuck catalog. But instead of selling anything you might need around the house, it offered an absurd number of different kinds of seeds. Bucky found the idea ludicrous. He didn’t even pick it up.

Steve was his same opinionated, determined self. At first it felt good, familiar even. Steve with his big plans, Bucky along for the ride. Bucky grumbled, but it was the cushiest work he could honestly remember ever doing. Pleasant company, pleasant weather, pleasant pace. Not terrible tasks.

But as time wore on, Bucky grew irritated with it. And he didn’t know why. The house was beautiful and quiet - he had to admit, Steve had found some good land. They were safe and comfortable here. 

But more and more often, it was just stifling. 

Some days - especially at first - the air felt clear, and Bucky remembered that giddiness that filled him, right after they closed the hole in his head.

Other times, something heavy dragged itself through his lungs. Bucky had the hardest time getting out of bed those days. And all the ghosts that Wakandan science had chased away, Bucky could feel them just on the edge of his consciousness…. jeering and sniffing and pawing at him. Looking for a way past his defenses.

 

-=-=-=-=-

 

There was blood everywhere. The numbing purples of internal organs filled his vision, and he fought to breathe through the bitter metallic taste in the air. And his hand, his hand did it. He watched himself do the terrible thing again and again. It was always the same. It was always him doing it. He couldn’t stop it. 

And he fought, he fought against it, now more than ever. The numb rage that lived there, everpresent, at the back of his head all those years… it now filled every muscle he had, as though if he pushed hard enough against the phantoms, they’d break. And then maybe he’d reach the other side of them.

By the time he finally woke from the dream, he was staring at the opposite wall of the bedroom. And though he felt screams stuck in his throat, he didn’t hear any sound but his own gasps. Nat’s arms immediately wound around him, and he finally realized he was still in bed, drenched in sweat.

“It’s okay. James. No one is hurt. You’re here with me, everyone is safe. You’re okay, James.”

She had a speech down. She had a standard thing she’d say by now. This happened often enough to be routine. He didn’t talk about it. He didn’t want to. She always understood, he knew that. He just hated spilling this all over her. Over and over again.

He patted her arm and laid back down. She watched him, for a long while. He kept still, closed his eyes, slowed his breathing. Eventually she fell back asleep. He lay awake.

His bed here was comfortable. Sometimes the softness was enjoyable. And sometimes it just made him feel cumbersome and out of place.

 

-=-=-=-=-=-

 

Steve bothered him again and again about what he wanted to plant. 

One day, Sam was at work. Nat was gone. Steve was at the library. After passing by the seed catalog countless times that morning - and with no one around to comment on his action - he finally picked it up. 

Pages of notes Steve had made fell out. Bucky gathered them all back together and stuffed them toward the back of the book. Then he flipped through the catalog itself.

The variety was as dizzying as he expected. Who needs hundreds of pages of types of vegetables? Bucky thought he might just pick out food he’d like to eat -- he could imagine, say, getting his face and hands sticky with watermelon again. But, as it turns out, it probably wouldn’t be an option for him to just say to Steve that he wanted watermelon seeds and be done with it. There was watermelon that had white flesh, or yellow flesh, or pink flesh inside a yellow rind. Or watermelons that grew to 200 pounds each. Or a dozen other different watermelon types that all looked to Bucky exactly like every watermelon he’d ever had. How was he supposed to choose between them? 

When Steve got back an hour later, Bucky was on the couch watching tv. He watched Steve do a double take when the catalog was in a slightly different position on the kitchen counter.

“Hey,” Bucky called out. “I want watermelon.” 

“You want to grow watermelon?” Steve asked with a smile.

Bucky wouldn’t have used the phrase *want to grow*, but…

“Yeah.”

“Good! I’ll put it on the list. That’s a great start! Keep at it, Buck.”

That’s not enough?”

“Man cannot live by watermelon alone. Besides, we’ll have a few acres. Not even you can put away a few acres of watermelon.”

Bucky sighed.

 

-=-=-=-=-=-

 

They kept to themselves, mostly. Which was alright with Bucky, he supposed. No need to risk anybody else getting close. 

There was a town of about 4,000 people twenty minutes one direction. They made quick trips to smaller stores there… including one called, honest-to-God, The General Store. 

There was another, larger city in the other direction. They could reach the outskirts of it in about 45 minutes. And with about 600,000 people there, if they made an effort, they could blend in fairly well. That’s where Steve’s favorite library was. There was a bakery that had a few Russian pastries that weren’t bad. Sam found a high school baseball team there that he’d started to follow.

And one Saturday night, Nat declared she was going to take Bucky out on an actual date in the “big” city.

After making sure he’d shaved, and had adequately dressy slacks and shirt on, Nat made him leave the bedroom while she got dressed.

Bucky wandered around alone downstairs, avoiding interrupting Steve’s reading in the living room. He tried to enjoy the scents Sam was making in the kitchen without getting close enough for him to see Bucky in his dress clothes and ask annoying questions.

A few minutes later, the very enjoyable sound of heels on the stairs heralded Nat’s readiness. She had a black dress on that hugged her curves, and her hair was sort of half up and half down, and curled. 

And she smiled at him. And he wasn’t sure for a moment if he could recall his own name.

He wrapped an arm around her and whisked her to the front door, before the others could see. He didn’t want to share her tonight. The front door closed behind them and Bucky felt a strange excitement. 

Nat would drive them, so Bucky escorted her to the driver’s side and opened the car door for her. As she stepped between his body and the car, he put his hand to the small of her back. His gaze then swept down the back of her, from neck to ankles.

That was when he noticed. Her stockings had seams running down the back.

The sight of them gave him an ancient, warm flutter, deep inside. It took everything he had not to pick Nat up and carry her back upstairs to the bedroom. Or behind nearby shrubbery, for that matter. Nat turned her face toward him, which was the only thing he could imagine tearing him away from the sight of her legs just then. She smiled, with a gleam in her eye, and leaned in and gave him a peck on the cheek. 

The spot on his skin where she’d left the chaste kiss felt cool and warm and more alive all at once. 

He got a buzz from watching her graceful entrance into the car. Then he strode quickly around to the other side, to climb in and be next to her again. 

He deliberated where he wanted his hand to touch her while she drove. Maybe behind her neck, maybe the top of her thigh, maybe between her legs. It somehow seemed a momentous decision, and he was strangely undecided. But as soon as she’d maneuvered off the property, she had only one hand on the wheel. She smiled at him again. He snagged her other hand with his and kept it as she drove.

Two hours later, her hand was in his yet again, resting in between two marinara-smeared plates that were once heaped with pasta. 

It was a quiet restaurant with the perfect level of low lighting. Nat had requested a particular table that she may or may not have scouted ahead of time. It gave both of them great sightlines if they sat on adjacent sides, within arms’ reach of each other. So it was easier to relax. Bucky really had to admire her foresight. She thought a lot of things through. 

The hunger he always had for Nat somehow felt different tonight. Less desperate. Deeper, but softer too. Tonight was a break from the constant feverish wondering if the next moment would rip her away from him again. He wondered what caused the change in his fear level, and how long it would last. Then he thought maybe he should just enjoy it.

Nat picked up her wine glass to take a sip, and raised an eyebrow as she did it. She put the glass down with a slight shake of her head.

“What was that about?” Bucky asked.

Nat casually rested an elbow on the table, as she turned herself toward Bucky. “The table in the corner has a first date going down,” she explained quietly. “And one of them is making a terrible first impression.”

“Oh?”

“Mhm,” she said conspiratorially. “He hasn’t stopped talking about himself all night.”

Bucky looked casually over her shoulder. He’d registered the two young men as not-a-threat on his first assessment of the restaurant, and had ignored them since. But with Nat’s description, he could tell which was which. One was gesturing very broadly and smiling with a highly confident air about him. The other sipped his wine in a more measured tone, with a slight slouch.

“Oh,” Bucky said sympathetically. “Oh, his date is… nodding absentmindedly when he talks. That… that’s not good, man.”

“Nope.”

“Should we... try to offer him an audible or something?”

Nat shook her head. “He’s too pretentious. No save for him. The cute nerd deserves better.”

“Cute nerd? Because he’s wearing glasses?”

“He’s also an engineer, an ex-pat from Venezuela. His sister is having a baby but I don’t know how far along she is. His date didn’t let him get that far.”

Bucky raised an eyebrow. “Am I boring you over here at this table?”

“Hush,” she needled him. “You’ve met me.”

Then she got a gleam in her eye, and grinned at him. “This gives me an idea, though,” she said.

“Uh-oh.”

“Okay. Let’s play a game. We *just* met. You and I. Friends set us up tonight.” Nat had now curled toward him, her hand resting on the back of his chair.

Bucky held back laughter at the scenario she was running. “Okay. Our mutual assassin friends?”

“Our mutual assassin friends thought we would hit it off, and set us up.” 

“Are any of their sisters pregnant?”

“Not relevant.”

“I think it’s probably relevant to the sisters,” he said.

“I think you’re looking for a reason not to show me your game.” Nat’s grin got especially delicious.

Bucky raised an eyebrow at her. “That’s a serious allegation, Miss Romanoff.”

“Then do it,” she dared. She leaned in and brought her lips very close to his, then held still. “Woo me,” she said.

Then she leaned back away from him, taking a delicate sip of her wine and giving her attention to anything else in the room but Bucky.

Bucky stood a little straighter and dug around inside himself, looking for some swagger. Or, if he couldn’t find that, he’d settle for some simple smoothness. He wet his lips and opened his mouth, wondering what might come out.

“You know,” he hear himself say silkily. “I’ve been meaning to tell you something all night.”

Nat responded by putting her drink down and turning her head a bit toward him, a somewhat attentive expression on her face.

He took a breath and waited again to see what words he’d say. Now that Nat had come closer, had turned back toward him, had turned her eyes to his. The most beautiful eyes he’d ever seen. The lips he’d dreamed about since the first time he’d seen her.

He willed his tongue to loosen, to say anything. 

But nothing came. Absolutely nothing. 

He choked.

As the moment came and went, he wrinkled his nose in a wince and laughed ruefully at himself. He turned away from her to put his elbow on the table and his forehead in his hand. 

“Wow!” she said with delight. “That’s the best line I’ve ever heard! Did it work? Did you use that one a lot?”

“‘Did it work?’” He tried to salvage some pride by laughing at himself. “My dance card was plenty full with charm like that, believe you me. Once, I even got a chaperoned date with…” He paused dramatically on the name she never would have heard before. Then he nodded as he spoke. “Molly Hopkins.”

“No! Not THE Molly Hopkins!”

“Oh yeah,” he said. “That was quite the feather in my cap right there. She was the most popular girl at school.”

“Amazing. Was she as educational as Mrs. Debicki?”

“Not even a little,” Bucky chuckled. “Not like that.”

“Awww.”

“But she had a great smile,” Bucky remembered. “And she was kind.”

Nat gave him a curious look. “Is that an observation you’re making across the years? Or was that something that caught your eye back then?”

Bucky shrugged, and he slowly spun his glass of wine under his hand. Nat’s smile got bigger and she leaned in again.

Bucky put a hand on her thigh, and felt a small metallic bump on a strap underneath. 

His breath caught. Her stockings weren’t just seamed pantyhose. They were actual thigh high stockings that she was keeping up with garter belts. If there was any detail at all that he could dredge up about his teenage wet dreams, it was seamed stockings and garter belts. Bucky’s pants got very tight, very quickly.

“I really didn’t think… I mean..” Bucky huffed impatience at his lack of words.

“What is it?”

“I just… I never would have asked you…” He met her eyes, and she intuited what he meant.

Nat licked her lips. “You wouldn’t have asked me to dress a bit like the very first girls you ever looked at with lust in your eyes?” 

Bucky felt flush. “Yeah.”

“Those cues are powerful,” Nat said, running a finger around his collar, softly tickling his neck. “There’s all kinds of different life experiences that sink into our tissues, you know? And they’re not all bad. I guess I just wanted you to know that. You don’t have to have any intellectual or emotional interest in recapturing the past to just viscerally get off on seamed stockings.”

“With a garter belt,” he said. He felt a little gasp escape his lips. “How did you know to try this?”

Her laugh was soft and loving. “Sweetheart, love. You’re not that hard to read.” 

Bucky realized, he didn’t have anywhere else he needed to be. Not the distant past. Not the nightmare years. Not their first time together. Not even later tonight when those stockings came off. He could be right here.

There was nowhere else he needed to be.

Nat was perfectly beautiful and the night sparkled around all of its edges. After dinner, they went home and snuck upstairs and snuck around their own room. And they were quieter than they’d ever been while having sex, and it was perfect. Nat lay back on the bed naked and regal and languid as he curled his hips into hers and filled her up, unhurried. 

And Bucky was in some very different world from the usual one, and there was just nothing but beauty around him. 

 

-=-=-=-=-=-

 

The next time everybody left him alone, Bucky sat down with the catalog again. He found it so stressful to think about growing something. It felt like so much commitment, more than he was capable of. He had no idea how to keep plants alive. He had no idea how to keep much of anything alive. All of his skills were for ending things. 

He’d grown potatoes, Steve would say. And sunflowers. He only vaguely remembered carrying pale little potato roots in mayonnaise jars to school. He couldn’t have been older than 12.

He sat down again, and made himself focus. He began to imagine he was just grocery shopping, in an attempt to finally make some choices, to make Steve happy.

There were carrots called oxhearts. They’re weren’t long and skinny carrots, though. They were the size and shape of a large animal’s heart… like a human heart. One carrot covered most of the palm of the hand in the picture. They were still carrot-orange, though.   


There was corn that looked like it was made of stained glass… little translucent kernels of blue and red and green and frosty white.

There was green cauliflower. Bucky found that far more disconcerting than he thought he should.  _ Cauliflower is white _ , he thought.  _ If it’s green, why wouldn’t it just be broccoli? _

The catalog had a flower section too. Bucky learned there was an actual flower called a wallflower. The one in the catalog was orange. It was a tiny flower that grew in clusters, a dollar and a half for 100 seeds. Bucky didn’t think anything cost just a dollar and a half anymore, besides individual cans of soda.

 

-=-=-=-=-

 

He couldn’t remember ever being this tired, but that made no sense to him. By now, he’d remembered fragments that added up to decades of time as the Winter Soldier. And the things he’d done? The ways he was treated? The long mission she was sent on? Surely, surely he had been far more exhausted before.  

But he couldn’t find any sense memory within himself that was heavier than this felt. 

Sometimes the only thing he wanted to do was sit in the dark, doing nothing.

He sat down with the seed catalog again.

“Hey, Sam,” he called into the next room. “If I get rhubarb, will you make some pies?”

“Is it artisanal?”

Bucky turned around to glare in his direction, though Sam couldn’t see him.

“If you grow me rhubarb,” Sam said, “I will definitely share my pie with you.”

 

-=-=-=-=-

 

His dreams had started to specialize. 

Instead of a montage of gore and death, one night would be Seattle, circa 1990. A vivid and detailed reenactment of it. Another would be that night in Madripoor, some time in the 60’s.

One night Nat began comforting him and he just couldn’t take it. He couldn’t stand her touch, and he was terrified he’d hurt her. He made the excuse that he needed water. But when he came back to bed she reached for him again.

“I tried to kill you, Natalia, I hurt you,” he said without preamble. He couldn’t stop himself from saying it, and he couldn’t stop talking, but he put his head in his hands in an attempt to try. It didn’t work. “Over and over again. I tried to kill you. I nearly did. Why are you here with me?”

She was quiet a moment, one arm clutching a bedsheet to her chest, the other tense with the effort of not touching him. She was weighing her strategies, he knew. They all weighed their strategies with him. 

“You left me alive,” she said. “Over and over again.”

She said something else but he didn’t hear it. Something just hurt and he couldn’t stop it. 

There was something he should be doing… something he needed to be doing. And he didn’t know what.

 

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

 

It was finally time to do something with the dirt that Steve thought would grow them food. Steve had test results in his hand, and he said there was peat moss and fertilizer outside to add to the soil. They needed to mix it all up too, and break up the soil so it was softer, for growing plants to sprout their way through.  

Bucky half expected Steve to hand him a shovel and tell him to dig up acres of dirt. This time, though, there was a one-person motorized tractor-type thing waiting, next to wheelbarrows and rakes and a lot of fat bags of additives.

“Oh,” Bucky said when he saw the bags. “Cow manure. Nice.”

“You’re not getting out of helping just because it’s manure,” Steve said.

“No, that- I being wasn’t sarcastic. When you said fertilizer, I thought you meant ammonium nitrate. I hate dealing with that crap.”

“Nope. Artisanal soil additive, personally crafted by the best cows.” 

“Good.”

They each loaded up their own wheelbarrow of additives and carried them to adjacent plots of land. Steve gave Bucky some basic instructions -- a couple inches of this, a couple inches of that. Just spread the stuff on top first. It wasn’t an exact science.

They worked in silence for a while... Bucky in his section, Steve in his. They covered a lot of ground pretty quickly. The quiet was nice. Buck liked the quiet. Companionable quiet was different than alone quiet though. Bucky thought they each had their plusses. 

“How does this get mixed in?” Bucky asked after a while.

“That’s what I bought that for.”

Bucky really looked at the machine for the first time. “Is that a tractor? Do we own a tractor now??”

“Technically I think it’s just a tiller,” Steve said.

“You don’t have to be dismissive. It could be a tractor if it wanted to.”

“I’m sure it could,” Steve replied.

“It has the heart of a tractor. I can tell.”

“Mhm.”

Bucky felt a sudden affinity for the tiller that he would definitely stop talking about and never mention to anyone.

When they each had a plot covered with peat moss and manure, Steve fired up the little gas tiller and they shuffled it through the soil. Glinting silver blades cut through what they’d just laid down, and several more inches of the soil below that, churning it all together and providing soft paths that seeds could use to become plants. The result, if they did it right, was a soil friendlier to a lot of tiny little seeds trying to make something of themselves.

As Steve tilled the last of the prepared sections, Bucky crouched down to get a good look at this stuff they were pouring so much time into. 

It was a bit surreal. All the civilizations in the world, all the cities and families and life that there was… it all came down to this. Dirt clever enough to grow things out of almost nothing. He stuck his hands in the soil, and watched the strange shining darkness of it. Something about the fibrous lumps and the patterns of powder echoed the lines and sworls of his organic hand. The glint of his bionic hand reminded him of the blades of the tiller nearby. 

He was suddenly reminded of a book he’d read once, that had robots farming on the moon. He didn’t remember the story much at all. He just liked the image: the combination of dizzying technology and strange landscapes and plain dirt that was smart enough to keep people alive.

 

-=-=-=-=-=-

 

Bucky was headed downstairs to the kitchen when he noticed somebody was crouched down in a side hallway. 

He had a millisecond of heightened alert mode before he realized it was Sam.

Sam was being very still, and something about the air around him made Bucky not want to holler out to him. Bucky tried to approach quietly, but still purposely made just enough noise not to startle him. When he got close enough, he could hear that Sam’s breathing pattern was incredibly ragged. He just had some skill at keeping it fairly quiet and unnoticeable.

Bucky gently moved to sit down on some floor a few feet away from Sam… within his line of sight, but not in his personal space.

Sam’s face was tight and tense, and he hadn’t met Bucky’s eyes yet.

“Everything okay?” Bucky asked quietly.

Sam nodded curtly.

“You wanna talk?”

Sam shook his head several times. 

Bucky nodded. Eventually he added, “You wanna be alone?”

Sam didn’t answer. But he let his labored breathing be louder than the mere whisper it had been. He really opened his chest and let himself get some air in.

Bucky nodded again, and curled his knees up in front of him. While Sam stared at his chosen wall, Bucky stared back down the hall from where he’d come.

Steve had mentioned to Bucky that Sam had lost somebody in action. Bucky didn’t have too many more details than that. He wondered if Sam already had his expertise in trauma before that incident, or if he acquired those skills after his loss.

He looked at Sam, and Sam looked about the same. He tried to remember what Sam did for him. Bucky had been overwhelmed at the time, but surely he could reconstruct something, if he thought about it. 

Sam was… he was just there. 

And… he was relaxed himself. 

That’s all Bucky remembered.

Bucky checked his shoulders and realized they were tense. He let them fall, and he took a slow, deep breath.

Bucky decided to keep doing that, and to not talk much, and to be still. That was a skill he had. Waiting for the shot, waiting for a target, waiting to be unfrozen. Bucky had a long history of stillness.

These days, when he was being very still, Bucky could sometimes completely lose track of time. He wasn’t sure when his mind started to wander so easily. During the war, he could not only sit still for hours on end, but he could tell someone afterwards how long it had been, and he’d be accurate within just a few minutes. Not anymore. He often wasn’t sure how much time was passing. 

He checked on Sam. He looked less tense. His breathing wasn’t relaxed, but it was slower. Sam had a hand pressed to his chest and his eyes closed. He was calming himself. He probably had some experience at that at this point.

Bucky sat in silence a few more minutes. His eyes wandered the hall. Bucky randomly realized he didn’t hate the hardwood floors they had here the way he usually disliked them. He wasn’t sure why.

Sam eventually opened his eyes. He was still taking deep breaths, but they were softer.

Bucky chanced sharing an observation out loud.

“You have the same kind of panic attacks I do,” he said gently. “Quiet ones.”

Sam took another deep breath in, and let it out. “Don’t want to bother anyone.”

Bucky understood. He got up and went downstairs. 

In the kitchen, he filled a cup with ice and water, and walked it back up to Sam. Without comment, he handed it to him. Wordlessly, Sam nodded at him and took it.

Bucky went back downstairs and looked for something to eat.

 

-=-=-=-=-=-

 

Bucky sometimes went with Steve to visit the library. He enjoyed being around that many books, even if crowds still bothered him. And, if he were completely honest, women who were pleasant to look at were even more pleasant to look at when they had books in their hands. He wasn’t sure why. 

Walking past the computers always made him remember every impulse he ever had to research his own crimes. Fill in the maddening blanks in his head. Find context for some of the dangling, orphaned images he saw at night. Sometimes the impulse was overwhelming to find newspaper articles about the deaths. To see them from some other perspective besides his blood-soaked hands. 

He had done it once, the first time Steve brought him here. Madripoor, 1956. Articles described the death of the British ambassador, and some bystanders. Bucky was certain there was more to the story. He wanted to find more, wanted more context for what he’d done. But he worried his actions online would be monitored, that something would be flagged and someone might come looking. With surveillance as high as it was in the country these days, who knows what fallout there might be.

The last thing he wanted to do was to get anyone else in trouble. Or to lose them Steve’s house.

Instead of searching for what he wanted this time, he went to the paperback sci-fi section. They had more books in from a series about cyborgs that he’d really liked.

 

=-=-=-=-=-=-

 

Eventually Bucky had thumbed through the entire seed catalog, minus the tomato section. Twenty-five pages were just too many tomato choices to give a damn about. 

Peas still struck Bucky has being too much work, and not enough payoff. Peanuts, on the other hand, he considered trying.

There was a berry out there somewhere called a wonderberry. He thought it unlikely that it would live up to its name.

There were eggplants the size of cherry tomatoes. There were 20 pound beets, and greens that were red. There were melons in the shape of long thin snakes. That was all still too overwhelming.

Bucky kept coming back to the wallflower page. Friendly, quiet little orange clusters of flowers stared at him from that entry. He always stopped on that page, and heard his father’s voice calling Frannie a wallflower. Frannie had been the youngest in the family, only 13 when Bucky joined the army. She was so quiet, sometimes she wouldn’t speak for days. It always bothered his parents. But Bucky just figured she didn’t have anything she wanted to say. They could be a loud bunch, the rest of them, and they were all hard-headed. He could see how it was wasn’t always worth trying to make herself heard over all that noise. 

When he thought about her, he missed her. He wished he’d known more about her. She’d died of heart failure shortly before he truly got away from Hydra. She had surviving children. Maybe Bucky would feel like meeting them one day. But not now.

That was the only flower in the seed catalog that he stopped to look at.

 

-=-=-=-=-=-=- 

 

Bucky drove over to the (honest-to-God) General Store to get some hardware one day. Steve had cut and planed some pieces of wood to build shelves out of, but his carpentry skills - while much improved - still turned out finished products that were a little more rough-hewn than he first imagined them. They would need stronger brackets to keep the shelves together.  

Bucky nodded a hello to the two old men always chatting in their rocking chairs at the front of the store. Then he went and got the brackets from the cramped hardware aisle and headed back up to the front to purchase them. He inched past a crowded display of beekeeping products on the way up, and wondered when somebody in the house would start looking into that as a project. He considered who he would bet on getting interested in beekeeping first. He decided it would be Sam.

As one of the regular cashiers rang him up, the two old men - fixtures at the store - were mid-conversation nearby. 

The rounder man was white and completely bald, with the kind of ruddy face and bulbous nose that made Bucky think he drank a lot. The thin man was black and had a full head of wiry, snow white hair, with a carefully kept goatee to match.

“Your son got his scouting started for the fall?” the thin man asked his companion.

“Oh yeah,” the round man croaked. “He put a stand down toward the west finger of the lake.”

“Mhm,” chimed the thin man.

“Gonna be a good year for bucks,” the round one said.

Bucky chuckled to himself. He figured that remained to be seen.

“Should be a good year, good numbers,” agreed the thin man. “Too many. They’ve been overrunning the place.”

“Mhm,” said the round one.

“Gotta get ‘em better controlled. Keep ‘em out of the gardens. ‘Scuse me, young man?”

“Yes, sir,” Bucky responded awkwardly as he took his receipt from the cashier.

“Your family bought the land out on Route 4,” the thin man said.

“Yes, sir, that’s us.” 

“What’s your name again?”

“It’s Jack, sir,” Bucky said.

“Jack.” The thin old man extended a warm, knarled hand and Bucky took it. Some things in life were a little bit easier for Bucky with his flesh hand being the right one. 

“My name’s Bernell Washington,” he said. “Everybody calls me Mr. B.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” Bucky said.

“Jack,” my round man extended his hand and Bucky took it. “My name’s Charley Bishop.”

“Sir.”

“Jack, what’s your family name?” Charley asked.

“That’d be Monroe,” Bucky said.

“Are those your Monroes south of here in the valley?” Charley asked.

“No sir, I’m not from here.”

“I see,” Charley considered.

“Jack, you do any deer hunting?” Mr. B asked with a smile.

“I have not.”

“Well,” Mr. B said. “You all are going to have some fine hunting right outside your back door! Help us out come fall when the hunting seasons starts. We need some population control.”

“That’s right,” Charley said. “Jack, if you need any instructions, my son gives gun safety lessons at the VFW Hall every month for folks wanna learn.”

Bucky took the man’s number to be polite, and nodded his goodbyes. He decided not to do the math on how much older he was than the two elderly men he’d just left. As Bucky drove home, he started to get curious about something else, though. He’d never once gone hunting for any game at all… but how hard could it be? He wondered. He certainly knew how to use a rifle. There were a couple in the shed, he knew that much. Nat had brought them to have on hand. And like the men had said, there were woods right there. No one else would be on their property. Steve had been on him to get off the couch and find projects to try.

He wondered if Sam had any interest in cooking venison.

By the time he got home, he’d decided he was going to do this. Or at least he’d find out if he could. He texted everybody who lived or ever stayed at the house, to make sure they were accounted for, and none of them would be home for hours. He didn’t mention why he was asking. He went to the storage closet and picked out the weapon he thought most appropriate. He already had an Army green jacket, so he left that on. He changed from his blue jeans to some brown work pants.

Then he moved as quietly as he could into the woods. 

He imagined dedicated hunters had better ways to do this task… but he also suspected he had more patience and a slightly different skill set than most of them. He found a tree to climb, with moderately clear sightlines in a few different directions, and positioned himself where he wouldn’t mind being still for a long time.

About three hours later, a big antlered deer wandered down one of his sightlines. 

One shot later, Bucky had him down. Clean hit.

It was a strange sense of accomplishment, finding something he could do that he’d just heard strangers discussing as a sport in a store. He had just done something that would be of benefit to the household. He’d bring food home. 

He climbed down from the tree and carried the deer back to the house.

He suspected there were places he could take the carcass to get it processed properly. But it seemed a hassle, and he wasn’t entirely sure what he’d just done was legal. So, in the shed he found a suitable saw and some shears, and among his possessions he found some knives he could use. 

Bucky felt himself go into autopilot as he began processing the animal. He kept the head in case anybody wanted it. Then he made a few guesses as to what flesh would be useful for eating and what wouldn’t, and separated the flesh from the bones.

By the time he was bringing larger portions of meat to the kitchen, Sam and Steve had returned from a trip to the city.

“What’s going on?” asked Sam, curiously.

“How do you feel about venison?” Bucky asked.

“Oh, nice!” Sam replied. “Sure, haul it in.”

Bucky sat the pieces down that he had and went and got the others.

When he came back in, Sam spoke. “Before you catch your next one, we might go ahead and, you know, wait until hunting season. So it’s legal.”

“Yeah I wondered about that, once I got the kill.”

“Steaks,” Sam said. “Tenderloin. Roast. Fantastic.”

“Wow, that’s…” Steve was working his head around Bucky’s haul. “That’s impressive work, Buck. Thorough cleaning. I didn’t know you knew how to do that with a deer.”

“Eh, it’s not much different than a person.”

The instant the words had left his lips, It felt to Bucky like time froze -- like the whole world just stopped breathing. 

The thought hadn’t fazed him in the slightest, the entire time it was inside his head. That’s how he knew so much. That was the skillset that he just adapted to bring home this prize. He accomplished this task because of his experience with torture, and disposal. He’d even taught those skills to others. 

That knowledge - those skills - just sat quietly in his bones. In the same ordinary way that his ability to drive a car did. It was just there. But as soon as he'd said it out loud, he knew. 

Bucky knew it wasn’t supposed to be that ordinary. He knew it would rattle Steve to hell and back. He knew the both of them were now looking at him, thinking terrible things.

Bucky couldn't look either one of them in the eye. He couldn’t bear the hurt look he knew he’d see on Steve, or pity from Sam. His face felt hot. He dropped the last chunk of meat where he stood, willed his legs to work again, and headed back outside.

He went into the woods, and he just sat down. He sat stock still, and his brain seemed to stall for a while. His breath felt strange for a while. But eventually his lungs remembered how to work again.

The sun had gotten significantly lower when he realized that Steve hadn’t come to talk to him. This might be outside the bounds of even a Steve Rogers pep talk.

Just as he thought that, he heard footsteps nearby. Natalia appeared. She moved slowly, and softly, and sat down next to him.

She spoke gently. “Sam’s practically tied Steve to a chair to give you a bit time to yourself out here. Is it okay if I stay?”

Bucky nodded.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.

Bucky wondered what to say. He’d taught these same skills to Nat too. She had this knowledge inside of her, because of him. He didn’t like that at all. 

But somehow her sitting nearby eased the heavy blankness sitting on him. She knew. She didn’t just know the skills he’d taught her. She knew what it was like to have to carry that inside. She probably knew what it was like to have it sneak up on you. To realize how little you fit in with other people.

She carried all that. And yet she was still radiant, and wonderful. For some reason that he didn’t understand, that was comforting.

He shook his head no. He didn’t want to talk. He took her hand in his and they watched the sky turn orange and pink, and then dark blue and black.

Nat and Bucky waited until all the house lights were out. He wanted everybody else to be asleep when he went back inside. They’d go to bed and they’d all just start over tomorrow. And he willed everyone to just ignore what had happened. Nobody would mention it.

 

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

 

A few days later, Steve had another idea. Bucky felt certain that this idea had occurred to Steve at three in the morning as he lay awake worrying. Bucky could imagine Steve thinking, ‘Yes, this will be a great enrichment activity for Bucky’s recovery.' 

“C’mere,” Steve said, prodding him away from the couch and the tv. “I need a boxing partner. And you need a workout.”

“Workout?” Bucky asked. “What do you call what we’ve been doing out in the back?”

“You gonna tell me you’re not in the mood to punch anything?” Steve asked him.

Bucky conceded the point with only a partial eyeroll and got up to follow him. 

One corner of the large shed they’d built had accumulated a custom-made heavy bag, some pull up bars and other random gym equipment. Bucky had played with the bag a bit. If he was careful with his left hand, it wasn’t a bad way to pass some time. He was already in sweat pants and a t-shirt. He tossed his shoes to the side and got ready to practice some kicks and punches.

Steve stepped behind the bag and leaned into it to brace it for Bucky. Bucky wondered at Steve’s casual trust in him… no wariness, no hesitation. Steve just put himself right there, preparing to have only the smallest obstacle between them while Bucky punched and kicked at that obstacle. It made sense, Bucky supposed. But it was still surreal.

“So, you got a movie picked out for your turn yet?” Steve asked.

“Maybe,” Bucky replied. He put a right hook into the bag. “You seen any of these Alien things?”

“Which alien things?”

“That’s the name. ‘Alien’.”

“Oh,” Steve said. “I don’t think so.”

“Could be fun.” 

Bucky warmed up with a long series of easy punches as they spoke.

“Nat gonna stop by again soon?” Steve asked.

“Yeah, she should just be gone another day.”

“Any idea what she’s up to?”

Bucky shook his head. He wondered too, but he was going to give Nat her privacy.

“We should stock up on the beer she likes,” Steve offered. “Maybe stargaze some more.” 

“I don’t want another nostalgia night,” Bucky said.

“That’s okay,” Steve replied reassuringly.

“Hashing over the old stuff,” Bucky muttered.

“We never have to head down memory lane if you don’t want to. It’s been useful, though, hasn’t it? You’re piecing together more and more of our growing up, I can tell.”

“I guess,” Bucky said. “I know it’s fun for you. But…” Bucky trailed off.

“It’s hard work, I know it is,” Steve said. “We can take a break.”

“Some of your comments sometimes…” Bucky shook his head and started throwing in some light kicks. “The way you talk to me, especially when we start talking about all that.”

Bucky didn’t know what to say, and trailed off while he worked.

“What is it?” Steve gently urged, his brow furrowed.

“We can’t go back to that. You know that. Right?”

“Buck,” Steve chuckled. “I fall into some old patterns is all. For old times’ sake. Doesn’t mean that’s who I expect you to be.”

“That’s exactly what that means, Steve.”

“Ok. Then it’s not who I want you to be.”

Bucky snorted, and punched the bag a few more times.

“Steve.”

“Yeah?”

“How much of me do you think you know anything about?”

“What?”

“I’m asking. I know you learned all about what _happened_. How well do you think you know _me_? Right now?”

Steve looked unreadable, squinting noncommittally at Bucky.

“I’m asking you,” Bucky continued. “I need to know. I need to know if you really understand. I see your lists of things to catch up on and things to grow and-”

“Buck-”

“Steve, all that time!” 

Bucky threw a right cross body punch at the bag, and just let the words spill. 

“ALL that time you sat still in some ice somewhere…”

Right hook, left cross.

“I was… Steve, goddammit, I was all kinds of places.”

Left.

“Doing all kinds of things.”

Right, left. 

“Some of it was…”

Left, right, left, right. 

“Some of it was what I learned in the army,” Bucky admitted. “Backing you up. Some of it I learned standing next to you hunting down HYDRA bases. All of us going in. Freeing up the camps. I didn’t go into this gig innocent. I’d already seen shit.”

Bucky pulled back to hit the bag with his left, then changed his mind.

“But I got… I got more than we ever bargained for. And I need to know. I need you to tell me to my face if any little part of you is waiting for me to turn on the radio and do the lindy hop without a care in the world now or if you really, *really* know. I need to hear straight from you if you really understand how different I am.”

“Buck.” Steve shook his head. “Listen, just since I came out of the ice, I know I’ve changed in ways I never imagined. And my life has been… well in some ways, it’s been pretty ordinary.”

He adjusted the bag against his shoulder, preparing to receive more punches, as though Bucky hadn’t already dropped both hands and slouched in front of it.

“Yeah,” Steve continued. “I’ve met aliens and fought robots and done absurd things. But a lot of it, under this thin veneer of weirdness… it was just… fighting more battles that had to be fought,” he mused. “And getting up again the next morning and going to the grocery store. Same life, you know?”

Bucky tried to listen closely.

“I know how long you didn’t have that. Bucky, I don’t expect you to be the same person. I know I’m not. I’m not expecting you to move on like nothing has happened. If I couldn’t, you sure as hell can’t. But there’s what changes, and there’s what stays the same.”

Steve finally just let go of the bag and stood up, squaring his shoulders. 

“Buck. We couldn’t have been any closer had we been brothers. It doesn’t matter how much you change. You’re family, and that’s always gonna be true.”

Steve craned his neck to make sure he had Bucky’s attention. He did. Bucky was staring past him, groping for Steve’s words above the din of his own thoughts. When Steve paused, Bucky looked in his eyes.

“Buck, you’re family. You don’t ever have to earn that.”

Steve took another breath.

“I’m not gonna claim to know who you are right now,” he continued. “You don’t even have to know yourself. That’s why we’re here, Buck. You can become... whoever you need to be. I’m here to support you in that.”

“And if you don’t approve of who I am now?” Bucky felt defiant, and refused to let go of Steve’s gaze. “If you don’t like who I turn out to be? What then, Steve?”

Steve tilted his head and furrowed his brow again. “Buck. Listen to me.”

Buck loosened the fists at his side, and took a step in.

Steve gripped Bucky’s shoulder and then cupped his neck to bring him even closer. Then he looked him in the eyes as he spoke, shaking his head. 

“Buck. Who says I liked who you were before?”

Bucky closed his eyes, and something shifted inside. And he laughed… quietly, but from a deep place. 

Then he nodded at Steve.

Steve wrapped his arms around Bucky, and Bucky let him.

 

-=-=-=-=-

 

Steve had said just what Bucky needed to hear. He finally knew what he had to do. 

The house was dark. Sam was in a spell of daytime shifts, so everyone was home and in bed this time of night. 

Bucky turned on the stove light to see the note he was writing.

“Oxheart carrots. Pink corn. Adirondack potatoes. Tresca garden strawberries. Glaskin’s rhubarb. Wallflowers.”

Bucky slid the list into the front of the catalog, and left it on the kitchen counter.

The night was so alluring. Bucky didn’t mind the sleepless nights so much when it was this clear outside. There must have been a million stars in the sky. 

He grabbed his bag and his cap, and he closed the front door silently. The darkness felt warm and inviting, deep in his bones. He looked up at the Milky Way spilled brilliantly across the sky, and he breathed easier than he had in weeks.

He looked back at the house, feeling a bit like he should thank it. It was a good house. Just not right for him. 

He noticed his window now had some dim light shining through the thin curtain, with a shadow flickering irregularly. Nat was stirring. He couldn’t see her face through the fabric but he could make out fragments of her silhouette. 

Soon she stopped motionless. Then her flitting shadows coalesced into her beautiful shape against the curtain, as she approached the window.

She’d seen him leaving.

After a moment’s stillness, Nat tilted her head. She made no other movement.

He took it as a gesture of blessing.

Bucky turned back toward the road and kept walking, enjoying the feel of stretching his legs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my gosh, y’all! I might not be enough of a sadist to be a good writer. I just want to give you all a great big hug after that ending. Do you need anything? A glass of water? A blanket?
> 
> Bucky has something very important to do, and it will take some work. So the next story won’t go up right away, but rest assured I’m working hard on it.


End file.
